It is generally known to treat textile fibers with organopolysiloxanes to impart a variety of valuable properties to the fibers, such as water repellency, lubricity, anti-pilling, good laundry and dry cleaning durability, and the like. The use of organopolysiloxanes to achieve such properties is now well established but there continues to be a need to improve these and other desirable properties of the fibers, especially the anti-pilling properties of the fabrics made from treated fibers. In particular, there has existed a desire to improve the properties of the fibers while improving the processes by which the organopolysiloxane compositions are applied to the fibers, and in this regard, the need to speed up the processing of the fibers is the most urgently needed.
Typical of prior art compositions and processes used for achieving the desirable processing and end use properties are those curable compositions disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,459, issued Apr. 8, 1975 to Burrill in which there is set forth compositions obtained by mixing polydiorganosiloxanes having terminal silicon-bonded hydroxyl radicals with an organo-silane (or partial hydrolysates thereof) of the formula RSiR'n(X)3-n, in which R is a monovalent radical containing at least two amine groups, R' is an alkyl or aryl group, X is an alkoxy radical and n is 0 or 1.
The polydiorganoxiloxanes are linear or substanially linear siloxane polymers having terminal silicon-bonded hydroxyl radicals and an average degree of substitution on silicon of 1.9 to 2.0 wherein the substituents are generally methyl radicals. The siloxane polymers have an average molecular weight of at least 750 with the prefered molecular weight being in the range of 20,000 to 90,000. The cure mechanism appears to arise through the reaction of the hydrolyzable groups on the silane with the silanol groups of the siloxane polymer, usually under the influence of a catalyst, and at elevated temperatures.
There is a second Burrill disclose in U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,176, issued Dec. 4, 1979, in which an additional composition is disclosed for use in treating fibrous materials. The composition is disclosed as containing a polydiorganosiloxane having a molecular weight of at least 2500 and terminal -OX groups in which X is hydrogen, lower alkyl or alkoxyalkyl groups with the proviso that there also be present at least two substituents in the polydiorgano-siloxanes which are amine groups. There is also present an organosiloxane having at least three silicon-bonded hydrogen atoms, the curing mechanism being based on the reaction of the silicon-bonded hydrogen atoms with the silanol end bloks of the polydiorganosiloxane polymers under the influence of catalyst.
Also included in the prior art is the disclosure of Burrill,. et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,701, issued July 4, 1978 in which the inventors set forth yet another curable polysiloxane composition which has been found useful for treating fibers which comprises a polydiorganosiloxane in which at least two silicon-bonded subsituents contain at least two amino groups, a siloxane having silicon-bonded hydrogen atoms, and a siloxane curing catalyst. A study of the '701 patent shows that "siloxane curing catalyst" is used in the sense that non-siloxane containing organofunctional compounds are used to cure siloxane curable materials, and that siloxane compositions that function as catalysts is not intended.
Finally there is disclosed in the prior art the curable system described by Spyropolous, et al, in European patent application publication 0 358 329 wherein microemulsions are described in which the oil phase comprises a reaction product of an organosilicon compound having amino groups and an organosilicon compound having epoxy groups, wherein the reaction product has at least one amino group and two silicon-bonded -OR groups, and a method for making the microemulsions. The organosilicon compound having at least one silicon-bonded substitutent of the general formula --R'NHR", wherein R' is a divalent haydrocarbon group having up to 8 carbon atoms, and R" denotes hydrogen, an alkyl group or a group of the general formula --R'NH2, and (B) an organosilicon compound having at least one substituent of the general formula --R'--Y, wherein R' is as defined for those above, and Y denotes an epoxy group containing moiety, whereby the molar ratio of amino groups in (A) to epoxy groups in (B) is greater than 1/1, there being present in the reaction product at least two silicon-bonded -OR groups, wherein R denotes an alkyl, aryl, alkoxyalkyl, alkoxyaryl or aryloxyalkyl groups having up to 8 carbon atoms.